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Celebrating 90: The Values of Conducting VBS

With the release of VBS 2015 Journey Off the Map (Jump Start Kitsare available now) LifeWay has produced VBS resources for 90 years. In celebration I have been digging through the archives to find inspiration that is as relevant today as when first published.

Dr. Homer Grice, the man who established the path for LifeWay's VBS journey back in 1924, outlined these values of conducting VBS.

To the Children: provides the children with supervised play; clean, constructive, delightful social life; an exhilarating mental discipline; a helpful environment for overcoming bad and forming good habits; an opportunity to learn how to sing, to pray, to worship, to study the Bible, to put into practice the spiritual messages daily imparted to them… it supplements the work of the Sunday school and the other church agencies in making the Bible vital to him; it helps win him to Christ and bring him to the church for membership.

To the Pastor: it gives the pastor his best opportunity really to learn his children, to fellowship with them, to be a pastor to them and to win their love. The pastor who has the love of the children will have no trouble getting along with their parents.

It gives him an opportunity to study child life at first hand, to learn how to work with children, and to keep himself young in spirit. It makes him more sympathetic toward and less likely to find fault with them.

It gives him a wonderful opportunity to win them to Christ, and, through his contacts with them, to get into the hearts and lives of many indifferent and often ungodly parents.

To the Sunday School: a properly conducted Vacation school wins new pupils to the Sunday school, both among children and adults. It discovers new teachers. It develops the Sunday-school teachers working in the school and makes them much more efficient.

To the Church: a good Vacation school has wonderful advertising values for a church. It gets everybody to talking about it…Vacation schools secure many conversions among the children and pave the way for conversions among the adults. The school, too, wins the good will and esteem of the children and the parents…

Join the conversation. What do you consider the greatest value of VBS?